“During those heady days of early December, at least 50,000 people signed on to be part of the Anonymous army, joining in the grand disruption of the global wheels of commerce (er, kind of … these sites may have gone down in the DDoS attacks, but it’s not as though actual MasterCards didn’t keep working perfectly at the checkout). “I guess you could call it an army, but I wouldn’t,” says Housh, unfurling another telephone monologue. “Anonymous isn’t an army, or a group, per se. There aren’t members. Anyone who uses the loic is Anonymous, which means that anybody at any time in their lives can become Anonymous. Anonymous is nobody and nothing and nowhere.” He laughs a little, somewhat ghoulishly. “For all I know, you downloaded the loic, too—you’ve never proved to me you didn’t—so you might be Anonymous, too.”
If you’ve spent any time in Internet chat rooms, you’ve probably come across the saying “Don’t feed the trolls.” That means that you’re not supposed to shower any sort of attention, neither praise nor wrath, and definitely not CNN coverage, on the Internet’s top troublemakers, those flame-throwing, drama-producing, forum-obsessed kids with an excess of both computer savvy and time on their hands. Right now, though, the trolls are getting really well fed, though whether they’re also involved in a reputable practice of civil disobedience is a worthy subject of debate.
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Notes
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